A Deadly Poisonous Trio

Looking at all those berries yesterday got me to thinking about stuff out there that could really make you sick. Could, in fact, really kill you! I prefer to dwell on the healing power of nature, but I admit that it's good to know what things could hurt you. Here are three that you might find growing right now. You can look, even touch (wash your hands!), but for heaven's sake, don't put them in your mouth.

White Snakeroot (Eupatorium rugosum) is blooming abundantly along woodsy roadsides now, often mixed with its fellow eupatoriums, Boneset and Joe-Pye Weed. There's no reason to think we would want to eat it ourselves, but cows, it seems, will eat just about anything. If a cow does eat this plant, it won't necessarily kill her, but her milk could kill those who drink it. I've read that's what happened to Abraham Lincoln's mother. But jeez, this stuff is growing all over the place! How do we know the milk we buy at the grocery store is not deadly? Because that milk is never from one single cow, but rather, from hundreds, even thousands of cows from numerous dairy farms, all mixed together at processing plants, diluting any toxins to safe levels. But what about small local farms that sell their milk directly? (Are there any?) Let's hope they keep the White Snakeroot out of their pastures.

Most folks won't eat wild mushrooms, anyway. But I do. I know about a dozen species I'll pick and enjoy, but never, ever, ever will I eat an Amanita. Or any other mushroom I am not absolutely sure of. I'm not absolutely sure of this one, in fact, except I believe it's one of the Amanitas: note the cup at the base, the ring around the stem, the gills that are free of the stem. This may be an Amanita gemmata, which is indeed poisonous, although not quite as deadly as its cousin Amanita virosa, also called the Destroying Angel. For a riveting account of someone who survived eating that Amanita, check out the Cornell Mushroom Blog. Most folks don't survive it.

This next plant is a poisonous cousin of several plants we eat: carrots, parsnips, parsley. It also looks like several of its cousins that are perfectly benign: Queen Anne's Lace or Water Parsnip. But be careful not to confuse them, because this one could do you in. It's called Bulb-bearing Water Hemlock (Cicuta bulbifera) and it's not related in any way to our forest-dwelling conifers called hemlocks. It is, however, related to the the hemlock that Socrates drank a cup of when he was condemned to death. All parts of it -- roots, stem, leaves, flowers -- are deadly poisonous. (At least to humans. I often find bugs feeding on the flowers. Are bugs impervious or are the nectar and pollen untainted with the toxins?)

This plant grows in wet areas, in marshes and along river banks, as does another deadly poisonous Parsley Family cousin, Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata). The bulb-bearing kind is distinguished by its very fine leaves and the tiny bulblets that cluster in its upper axils.

So there you are. Forewarned is forearmed. Although I can't imagine why anyone would eat any of these anyway. But keep them away from small children. Or serious enemies.

Jackie and the Giant Flowerstalks

I am not sitting down in this photo. I am standing as tall as my 5' 8" frame will reach, and the goldenrod still towers way over my head. Have you ever seen goldenrod so TALL? Or, for that matter, almost all the roadside weeds: Teasel, Sweet Clover, Queen Anne's Lace, etc.? Must be all the rain we had this summer. And still are having. What a strange year!

Another Beautiful Berry

Oops! I forgot to include this photo of Bristly Sarsaparilla (Aralia hispida) in my last post about beautiful berries. I actually photographed it a year ago near the Sherman Island boat launch along the Hudson River at Moreau. This species of sarsaparilla is about as uncommon as its cousin Wild Sarsaparilla (A. nudicaulis) is ubiquitous. And its blue-black berries on pinky-purple pedicels are about as pretty as its tiny yellow-green flowers are plain. I just wanted to show them to you.

Berry Hunting

Not quite so hot today, overcast, a little rain now and then. A good day for short trips to various sites to see what plants are in fruit. As the season for flowers winds down (some gorgeous asters are yet to come), the season for beautiful berries begins. Not all of them are good to eat, at least for us humans, but all are good to look at and learn about.

My first stop was a sunny clearing near the entrance to Skidmore Woods, where I found numerous plants of Orange-fruited Horse Gentian (Triosteum aurantiacum). Just as its name suggests, this plant has little orange fruits that circle the stem in the leaf axils. Occasionally, I find a full set of six, but more often two or three in each tier. I wonder who eats these fruits. There's a closely related plant called Wild Coffee that has fruits much like these that contain seeds that can be roasted like coffee beans. I don't know if you could do that with these fruits as well.

That same sunny clearing is home to lots and lots of Blackberry plants (Rubus allegheniensis). The unripe berries are a brilliant red to match the prickly stems. The ripe ones are glossy black, a little bit sour, but quickly consumed (I left a few for the picture-taking, eating my fill as compensation for lacerated shins).

I moved into the woods to seek Mayapple fruits (Podophyllum peltatum) and found quite a few, some with their leaves still attached. Everything about this plant is poisonous, I've read, except the fruit when it's ripe. It was ripe today, soft and fragrant and full of juicy flesh. The flavor? Ehhh. . . kind of bland. (Well, sure I took a bite!) I've heard it makes good jam. Even more important, though, is the fact that this plant is the only known source of Podophyllum, a substance that, while toxic, has been found extremely useful in treating skin cancer and venereal warts.

Nearby I found the ripening berries of Solomon's Plume (Smilacena racemosa). This plant is usually called False Solomon's Seal, but I think it deserves to have its own name, and not be false anything. Some botanists agree and offer "plume" as an alternative. I love the raspberry ripple effect of the not-quite-ripe fruit.

In the same dark woods I found Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) in fruit. But wait a minute, these blue balls may actually be the seeds, the fruit part having fallen away. I remember reading something like this, but can't relocate the source to be sure. They sure look like berries, though, and very pretty ones, at that. But they're as hard as cherry stones, with only the thinnest coat of dark blue flesh.

Not a fruit, this, although it hung from a tree. A very active wasp nest, too, with big ones flying in and out. I didn't get close enough to take their picture, but got the heck out of there.

My next stop was Yaddo, a woodsy artists' retreat on the eastern edge of Saratoga Springs, where lots of Northern Prickly Ash shrubs (Zanthoxylum americanum) grow around a pond.

It has bunches of bright red berries that split open to reveal glossy black seeds. I have read that oil extracted from its bark and berries has been used historically in herbal medicine for various ailments. And its bark can be chewed to relieve toothache, it's said, earning this shrub the alternative name of Toothache Tree. Of course, I had to try it, chewing on a twig for a moment or two. Well, my lips and tongue turned numb, all right, but I don't know if it would have numbed a painful tooth. The numbness lasted about half an hour.

There were two dogwoods in fruit at Yaddo. Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum) with bright blue berries on scarlet pedicels. . .

. . . and Panicled Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) with porcelain-white berries on bright-pink pedicels. Birds will gobble up the berries of both these bushes.

This Glossy Buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) had clusters of both ripe and unripe berries, making a pretty multi-colored display. I even found twigs with blossoms still opening, tiny greenish-white almost invisible flowers that produce these beautiful fruits. I've read that this shrub can be an invasive species, and for sure I found plenty of these bushes at Yaddo. I suppose the birds help to disburse the plant by consuming the berries and pooping the seeds far afield.

We humans had better not eat these berries, though. They contain glycocides that are strongly cathartic and will make us vomit. In his Book of Forest and Thicket, John Eastman informs us that veterinarians use a substance obtained from this genus as a purgative for dogs.

Here and There on a Muggy Day

Way too hot and muggy for a hike up a mountain today. So why was I huffing and puffing up the Spring Trail in Moreau Lake State Park, dripping sweat and swatting deer flies? I wanted to see my Nodding Ladies' Tresses, the ones that I found last year by the dozens in a grassy clearing half way up to an overlook. And glory be, they were there again this year. I counted 37 but there could have been more: these orchids are small and most were not yet fully open. They like damp spots in the sun, the kind of habitat that is rapidly disappearing, so finding a large population like this is quite an occasion for glee.

I also found one of the causes these habitats are disappearing, or rather, being overrun by invasive species. There it was, a single plant of the dreaded Purple Loosestrife, right in the middle of the patch of Ladies' Tresses. How the heck did it get up here? Well, it ain't there anymore! Nor are a couple of others I found and yanked out.

All kinds of asters are now in bloom, but I've stopped trying to identify them all. If my life depended on it, I could probably parse them out, distinguishing leaf shape and bract behavior and all, but what a bore! There are billions of species (it seems) and they hybridize freely, just to confound flower nerds. And except for a few beauties like New England Aster, they're not very photogenic. Most look something like this. I think this one is Smooth Aster (Aster laevis).

Sometimes you just can't believe your eyes. And you shouldn't. I saw these bristly balls seemingly attached to the fronds of Hay-scented Fern and thought they were some kind of gall (fern galls!?). But a closer look revealed they were just the spent flower-heads of Wild Basil poking up through the pinnae. Looked kind of pretty.

Also very pretty were these fruits of the Purple-flowering Raspberry (Rubus odoratus). They're just as nice to eat as they are to look at -- soft and sweet.

The day was still young, so I drove around to the lake part of Moreau Lake State Park (admission free for us oldies on weekdays!). I wanted to walk the beach and see if Small-flowered Gerardia (Gerardia paupercula) was in bloom. And boy, was it ever! Once you get past the swimming beach and the bridge between the two parts of the lake, the sandy shore is just covered with these pretty magenta blooms. (Note: It seems that since my Newcomb's wildflower guide was published, gerardias have been renamed and assigned to the false foxgloves. The new name for this plant is Small-flowered False Foxglove [Agalinis paupercula].)

An extra bonus was this clump of Closed Gentian (Gentiana clausa). I found just this one. This beautiful flower should be blooming profusely along the river right now, but the water is up so high of late, I think every plant over there has been drowned. By the way, when I searched the web for information about this plant, I discovered this could be G. andrewsii, a very similar species to G. clausa. I would have to take the flower head apart to be sure, and since either species is listed as "Exploitably Vulnerable" in New York, I wouldn't want to do that. So this plant could be one or the other. Any guesses which?  UPDATE:  This is definitely G. clausa.  The closed flowers of G. andrewsii have little tufts protruding from the top of the blooms.

In a dry sandy area near Mud Pond (another body of water in Moreau Lake State Park), I found these tiny Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum). This Mint-family plant gets its name from its long curling stamens, which are often blue, but can also be violet or white. The petals are always bright blue. If they weren't so brightly colored, I would never see them, they are so small, maybe half an inch and growing close to the ground.

Before I went home, I stopped in the park's Nature Center to visit with staffers Gary and Dave. I also wanted to know if the lone Black Tupelo growing along the lake's shore had been protected from beavers. Imagine my chagrin when Gary told me he'd shown that tree to a state biologist who told him it was not a Black Tupelo. Well folks, I am not a biologist (in fact, I was an English major), but I know that the tree in question is indeed a Black Tupelo. That's my totem tree, my first nature mystery that started this whole need to know the name of all that grows. So I know my tupelos. No other tree has a profile quite like this:

Maybe this biologist guy reads my blog and would like to challenge me on this. Bring him on!

UPDATE:  No wonder the state biologist was confused!  Gary told him I'd identified this tree as a Tulip Tree!

A Picnic in Paradise

The view upstream from Woodcock Island as the day turns into evening

The air was so hot and heavy today, I was glad to have tasks that kept me at home. But later, as the day wore on, I began to long to immerse myself in the river's sweet cool water and convinced my husband tonight would be a great night for a supper picnic on Woodcock Island. And he agreed. I put together a pasta salad with tuna, green beans, and local tomatoes, iced up a jug of lemonade, and Denis packed up the picnic backpack. Dessert would be fresh apricots and a cooling swim. The Wenonah tandem tied down on the car, off we went to paradise.

Woodcock Island (so-named for the woodcocks I used to find there) lies just a short paddle offshore from the Sherman Island boat launch on Spier Falls Road. As pretty a piece of rock as there is on this planet, the island is shaded by numerous trees (mostly oak) with a small clearing perfect for picnics.

The beautiful lichen- and moss-covered rocks served as our dining table.

There's a little islet just offshore, across a deep channel with a rocky bottom: I call this the swimming pool. You can step off the rocks right into deep water and not have to wade through muck. And the current runs so swiftly through there you can actually swim in place. Mother Nature's own lap pool.

And the water felt like heaven!

After supper and a swim, we paddled a while, enjoying the mountains' reflections in the still water. There was not one other soul on the river, except for a mama Merganser and her two half-grown babies. The light now growing dim, I could not get photos of them. Then, as we turned toward shore to go home, the sky grew very dark, and we heard a distant rumble of thunder. The storm held off until we were well underway in the car, but oh, what incredible clouds we could see as we drove along the river.

I'm one of those peculiar folks who just loves thunderstorms with their dramatic skies and explosive sounds and flashing lightning and drenching rains. So exciting! So this was a perfect end to a perfect evening. And tonight the air is much, much cooler after the storm. Sweet dreams.

A New Friend, New Discoveries

The rocks of the Hudson support all kinds of mosses and lichens (and Virginia Creeper, too).

Today it was HOT! If I hadn't had a date for a paddle, I probably would have stayed home with the AC cranked. But I am very glad I ventured out. It turned out to be a day of new discoveries for me. Including finding a new friend. A mutual friend arranged for me to meet Evelyn, a fellow botanizing Hornbeck paddler, who drove down from North Creek today to meet me at the river. And we had a grand old time. I showed her a few flowers she'd never seen, and she identified some mosses I see all the time but never knew the names of. Plus, we found a couple of plants we weren't exactly sure of, puzzles to solve, perhaps to add to life lists.

Evelyn's special interests are mosses and liverworts, plant forms the Hudson River banks abound with. She showed me a remarkable variety of them, but unfortunately, I took photos and notes of only a few. Here are three.

Feathery green Pleurozium schreberi covers the rocks in thick deep carpets, so soft and cool you just want to sink your fingers into it. Which I did.

Intermingled with the Pleurozium was this Bartramia pomiformis, equally soft and green but more grassy-textured and distinguished by these tiny "apples," the spore bearing organs. Evelyn told me the proper names of all the mosses' parts, but I didn't write them down. Obviously, I have a lot to learn about them.

Evelyn seemed to be quite delighted to find this tiny liverwort (without a magnifier, she wasn't quite sure of its name) and she gave me a little clump to bring home. I placed it in water on a white plate, the better to photograph it. Maybe someone who sees this photo will know exactly what it is. When I first saw it, I thought it was a moss. (As I said, I have a lot to learn.) The only liverwort I know is much larger with leaves that look like snake skin. But then, this group of plants is remarkably diverse in structure. I have read that they may have been the first green plants to diversify on land some 500,000 million years ago, making them the oldest living lineage of land plants. And lots of them grow right here, on my river bank.

Well, it's very good to have friends with good eyes. How on earth did Evelyn see this tiny bladderwort (Utricularia spp.) floating on the dark water? I can hardly see it against this white plate, although its tiny utricles -- minute creature-capturing bladders -- are in evidence. Since the flowers are absent, it's very hard to be sure of this plant's species, but its itty-bitty size suggests it might possibly be Utricularia minor. If so, this would be an unusual find, since USDA lists that plant as endangered or threatened in many states, including New York. I may never know.

Here's another plant we weren't exactly sure of, but plenty of evidence leads us to believe this is Eastern Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium dubium). We first noticed it because its flower heads were multiple and growing from the leaf axles, unlike the terminal, more flat-topped clusters of the more common Spotted Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum) that grows all around it. Also, its stem is not solid purple like E. maculatum's, but greenish with purple spots. And its leaf shape is slightly different. Trouble is, my Newcomb's guide tells me this flower grows near the coast. Hmm. Does a river bank qualify as a coast? But the USDA plant distribution website indicates it does grow this far inland. As I mentioned before, we found puzzles.

At least this one we were sure of: Tall (or Green-headed) Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata). These striking yellow blooms were towering over the Boneset and Cardinal Flower all up and down the river, adding a finishing touch to Mother Nature's splendid array of late-summer river-bank flowers.

Update, August 19: Evelyn e-mailed a possible ID for that liverwort -- Plagiochila asplenioides. I plugged that name (what a long one for such a tiny plant!) into Google Images and voila! There it was. Thanks, Evelyn.

A Search for Limestone Lovers

It was way too hot for a long hike today, and the river was writhing with weekenders' wakes, so I went for an easy walk. The trail I chose is in the Warren County part of Moreau Lake State Park, across the Hudson, along an old service road that provides access to Spier Falls Dam. By early afternoon the woods to the west shaded the trail quite nicely, and a gentle breeze made the walking very pleasant. Goldenrod and White Snakeroot bloomed alongside, and I recognized the foliage of the New England Aster to come. There was Common Mullein, too, and Spotted Knapweed, typical introduced inhabitants of the disturbed soils that line old roads.

But I had a goal to get off the road and explore the limestone outcroppings that distinguish this part of the park. These outcroppings create calcareous soils that support plant species seldom found in the rest of the park. My specific quest was for American Pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides), which I had found here several years ago and hadn't visited since. How someone with my poor eyesight ever saw this tiny flower, I do not know. But somehow I did, and returning to the original site, I found it again today. (Photo above) Remarkably aromatic, the leaves of this plant have had numerous folk-medicine uses, including as insect repellent. If I didn't have such a strong aversion to picking any wildflower, I would have crushed some leaves and rubbed them on my skin today, the mosquitoes were so bad.

My next discovery was Purple Milkwort (Polygala sanguinea), and this was a new one for me. I almost ignored it, assuming it was just Red Clover, but something told me to take a closer look. This flower has quite a different shape than the two other milkworts I know, Fringed Polygala and Racemed Milkwort. None of them have milky sap, despite their family name. Farmers once believed that feeding on them was supposed to increase a cow's milk production.

Exploring the flat rocky areas where the milkwort and pennyroyal grew, I kept seeing this snowy white aster-like flower on short (8-12 inch) stems with stiff spiky leaves. Hmmm, I thought, is this some kind of abbreviated Heath Aster? Or what? The closest match I could find in my Newcomb's was Upland White Aster (Aster ptarmacoides), but when later I went on the web to find more information about this plant, I discovered it may not be an aster at all, but a goldenrod. A goldenrod!? Who knew? And the USDA plant info web site gave it another scientific name: Oligoneuron ptarmacoides. So much for scientific names as a way to end confusion. USDA also listed a bunch of states where this plant (if that's what this is) is endangered or even extirpated. New York doesn't list it as rare, but I bet it's not all that common. It likes dry open areas with limey soil. Like where I walked today.

Let's see, what else did I find among those rocks? These knobby too-red-to-be-real little lichens -- (Cladonia cristatella) -- were studding the rocks where mosses and strawberries also grew. This is one of the few lichens to have a common name and it's a good one: British Soldiers. Although I think of British soldiers as having red coats, not red hats.

And here was a nice red fungus: Suillus spraguei or Painted Bolete. I've heard this mushroom is edible, but it wasn't worth picking just one.

A sweet treat to end my adventures today, this tiny baby bird was scurrying along the path, its mom (or its dad?) attempting to herd it into the shrubbery and away from my sight, while the other (invisible) parent squawked very loud in the bushes. The adult I saw briefly was colored much like this infant, light grey-brown above, soft yellow below, with white wing bars. Of course, it wouldn't sit still for a photo. Maybe a vireo? Or a female warbler? I'll bet some of my birding buddies will know.

Update, August 19: I received a note from New York State Chief Botanist Steve Young about that aster/goldenrod mentioned above. He writes: "That could definitely be Oligoneuron ptarmicoides since it likes limey soils along rivers. There is a large population in limey shale along the Hoosic River near Schaghticoke. It is on our watch list and used to be considered rare, but there is a ton of it in the limestone barrens near Watertown."

Back to "My" Hudson River

The splendid summer weather continues, and where better to spend the afternoon than on "my" stretch of the Hudson below Spier Falls Dam? I love to mosey along close to shore, marveling at all the colorful flowers now blooming, then paddle across to a lovely island -- home to what seems a thousand tree swallows -- and slip into the sweet cool water for a swim. My idea of a perfect day.

Mother Nature plants a gorgeous garden of wildflowers along the river:

Sneezeweed (yellow), Cardinal Flower (red), Monkey Flower (blue), and Boneset (white).

I was delighted to find Narrow-leaved Gentian (Gentiana linearis) in bloom on the island, especially since some years I seem to miss it. For years, there's been just one (sort of scraggly) plant, but this year I found four, and all looking really healthy. Must be this rainy summer has suited them. Bumblebees are about the only pollinators strong enough to shoulder their way inside these closed-up petals (they never open). Why do they bother, with so many other easier targets in bloom? I've read that the gentian's nectar is sweeter and more abundant than almost any other flower, making it worth the bee's expense of energy. But sometime the bees cheat and chew holes through the flower tube directly into the nectaries.

I found several plants of Turtlehead (Chelone glabra) just coming into bloom along the river. I have watched bumblebees struggle to enter this flower, then completely disappear inside. While the bee is rummaging around in there, the blossom's lower lip moves up and down, so it looks like the flower is chewing. Now, that's kind of startling to come upon! When the bee backs out, it is thoroughly dusted with pollen.

Out in the river, a number of species of water plants were starting to bloom. The curlicue stems of Wild Celery (Vallisneria americana) were heading up to the surface with their little white flowers. (To read about this plant's fascinating sex life, go to my blog post for January 29. ) This plant likes to grow where the current streams its eel-like leaves and carries its pollen along the surface to tryst with those female flowers just dimpling the water's surface.

I found another water plant growing in quieter, shallow water, and I don't know what its name is. It looks like a miniature evergreen forest down under the water, with tiny white long-stemmed trefoils floating on the surface. If any of my readers knows what this is, please leave a comment. I thought it might be elodea, but its leaves seem finer than those in the photos of Elodea canadensis I find on Google Images. Could it be E. schweinitzii (found only in New York, according to USDA) or E. nuttallii? I can't find clear web photos of these species. And my photo is not all that clear, either: try taking photos while the current and wind are yanking your boat away. I tried wading out to where this plant grows and sank to my shins in muck before I could get there.

I checked on the American Chestnut tree I found blooming beautifully earlier this summer, and found just a single burr-encased nut. This healthy-appearing tree had had maybe a hundred flowers, but now it has just one nut. On the other side of the river I found a rather sickly looking tree with many nuts, growing in clusters of three or four. I wonder if the closer the tree comes to dying, the more it puts forth fruit. I also wonder if any of the nuts are fertile.